The search for a truly revolutionary engine design that can make dramatic gains in efficiency requires deep scientific understanding and tools. Lots and lots of tools.

Evidence on the safety and effectiveness of medical devices is difficult to coordinate and assess, despite the critical role medical devices play in diagnosing and treating patients.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed the first widely useful standard for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the breast, a method used to identify and monitor breast cancer.

In March 2011, Leonardo Bonanni was preparing to defend his Ph.D. thesis about Sourcemap, software that lets consumers map every connection of a product supply chain on a digital map, when tragedy struck in Japan. Although the deadly earthquake and tsunami occurred half a world away, the events had an unexpected affect on Bonanni and Sourcemap.

A trained mechanical engineer, Mark Chang found himself “totally uncertain and unprepared” the first time he was called on to hire someone else.

“I didn’t even know why I was hired in the first place—what did they like about me?” Chang recalls. “So, how do I go out and look for the next person?”

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n the age-old struggle between humans and microbes, bacteria seem to be regaining the offensive. Only about a dozen classes of chemicals protect us from the myriad pathogens that populate our environment. Numerous agencies have warned that evolved resistance could soon render common antibiotics useless, and that few replacement drugs are in the pipeline. But help may be on the way.

Increasingly dynamic workplaces have made organizational change an everyday reality. Demands for workforce agility require a step up from those commanding—particularly in ongoing measurement and making use of feedback during this breakneck pace of change.

In the race to design smaller handheld devices and smartphones, a key factor is decreasing the sizes of components. As the demand for thinner and lighter microelectronic devices increases, manufacturers often are limited by how oddly shaped the energy sources must become to make them conform to the smaller space. Researchers at the University of Missouri (MU) have developed a method of transferring an energy source to virtually any shape.